Mardi Grad every day of the year

Since the weather has still been a little cold and snowy until the week of St Patty’s day we headed to Tremont where we got a taste of New Orleans, at Bourbon Street Barrel Room.

This restaurant is located on Professor Ave. in Cleveland, Ohio in the Tremont neighbor. This area has really built up in the last couple years and has some really good restaurants and shops.

Bourbon Street Barrel Room is A New Orleans themed restaurant. It is two stories with bars and different size tables on both levels. It is Mardi Gras themed with beautiful chandeliers and colorful art work on the walls.

Some thing I have always really liked about Bourbon Street is that they carry Abita beer. Abita is a brewery in Covington, LA that does distribute some of their beers up in Cleveland but Bourbon Street has always carried more of a variety. This time around I did notice they only had a couple Abita beers on draft and then more local Cleveland options. They also have hurricanes and tons of other mixed drink options. As well as multiple bottles of bourbon, which change depending on what they can get in. For starters I got one of my favorite Abita beers the Strawberry Harvest and my husband tried the PB and Jams. The strawberry harvest is a light beer with a hint of strawberry sweetness. The PB and Jams is a limited time beer. I was shocked at how good this beer was. You get the strawberry jam flavor and the peanut butter flavor. We also tried their Hurricane, which was on the very sweet and strong side. I honestly have never had a hurricane so maybe that is normal but for me I will probably skip it next time.

We also got a gator juice which has always been one of my favorites. It has strawberry and peach moonshine, pineapple juice and Blue Curaco. Our gator juice was a little more blue than in the past where it was a little more green but it was still really good. It is pretty sweet but you can’t tell how strong it is because of the fruity flavor. They normally come with gators attached to the straw but when we were there they were out of the gators.

Now onto the food! I’m such a fan of different cultures and types of food. Cajun and New Orleans food is some of my favorite. I love that New Orleans food has spice to it but with such great flavor. Bourbon Street Barrel Room specializes in this cuisine and has some other Cleveland inspired New Orleans style food like Po Boys. Their menu has lots of options from appetizers, salads to wraps to Po Boys to Cajun and Creole classics and New Orleans style entrees.

We started off with the gator bites and hot rocks. The first time I tried the gator bites I was so scared but they are so good. They honestly taste just like chicken even though it is alligator tail that is breaded and fried. They come with Louisiana hot sauce and Bistro sauce. I like both sauces but the Bistro sauce is so good and I highly recommend it. The Hot Rocks is crispy shrimp drizzled with both the hot sauce and the Bistro sauce. I really liked that the tail shells were removed and then the whole shrimp is breaded and fried to a perfect crispy. The right amount of hot sauce and Bistro sauce are drizzled over the shrimp. Giving them a little bit of kick that is them cut by the Bistro sauce.

There are so many good options to choose from for entrees and I just couldn’t make up my mind. I decided to go with the pick three sampler so I didn’t have to pick just one entree. I went with the Jambalaya, Red Beans and Rice and Crawfish Etouffee. Bourbon Street’s Jambalaya use to be one of my favorites but this time around it was on the dry side. It was still fine just not as good as in the past. The Jambalaya is a SW Louisiana style so it is made with dirty rice, chicken and Andouille sausage and differs from creole style which is made from a tomato base. The Red Beans and Rice and Crawfish Etouffee were topped with white rice, which I mixed with both. The Red Beans and Rice had really good flavor and is not spicy for my none spicy fans. The Crawfish Etouffee was on the spicy side but still had really good flavor. It was more of a gumbo texture with crawfish. The crawfish are like little pieces of lobster or shrimp when it comes to texture. There was a lot of crawfish in this dish. Enough that there was about one piece at least with every bite.

We also got The Bourbon Street pork chop, which was a 14oz pork chop with an apple maple glaze. My husband said he thought the pork chop was cooked really well. It came with red beans and rice and a seasonal vegetable which was Brussel sprouts. I tried the Brussels and they were crispy but not over cooked. The shrimp and grits and we added cheese. I didn’t try this dish but it looked phenomenal and everyone that did try it seemed really happy with it. Lastly, we ordered another pick three with another Jambalaya, the gumbo, and the BSBR cheese bites. The gumbo was the favorite out of these three choices. It had a lot of flavor, with a little bit of spice. The gumbo has Poulet, Andouille, File (gumbo powder), and Okra with steamed rice to mix it with. The BSBR cheese bites were good but if you do not like spice these are not for you. When you initially bite into these they taste like a normal mozzarella bite then the spice kicks in and some were on the very spicy side. I enjoyed these but I do not think they are for everyone. Lastly we also ordered the Hush Puppies because how do you not. The Hush puppies are crispy corn bread bites and at Bourbon Street they drizzle them with Bistro Sauce. Which my love for that Bistro sauce then drizzled over the hush puppies is just amazing.

We did end out meal with some Beignets which are powder sugared covered square donuts. They honestly didn’t seem to excite the table the way I was hoping and I did agree I have had better, from here and other places in the past. They are still a must try if you have never had them before. Bourbon Street gets their batter from a popular place down in New Orleans. They add some fresh fruit which even for it being off season in Cleveland the berries were pretty fresh.

If your looking for a taste of New Orleans here in Cleveland I think Bourbon Street is a must visit. We all did agree we wished the music would have been a lot louder as you could barely hear it and it would have added to the atmosphere. The restaurant is so unique all the way around, the atmosphere, the food and the drinks. Some of my favorites did not impress the way they have in the past but for the most part the food and drinks were really good. I can’t wait to go back and try some other menu items. Let me know your thoughts if you have been here or if you go for the first time I would love to hear about your experience.